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Drama lacking for history on stage
(by Herb Hammer - October 29, 2008)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
Drama lacking for history on stage
The Dobama Theatre is close to having a new home. Until that happens, and it will happen, the popular 50-year-old production company must continue to find places to perform.
Dobama moved from its underground theater on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights after spending decades there. But Dobama is a living, breathing theater with a huge following. They will move on. After doing several productions at the Cleveland Play House, the company expects to move into its new permanent home in a totally refurbished YMCA building in Cleveland Heights on Lee Road.
Last Friday, they performed in the Unitarian Church right around the corner from their old Coventry theater.
The play "Stuff Happens" by popular British playwright David Hare is done as reading. Dobama has cut down the original three-hour play to two hours.
"Stuff Happens" comes from a line spoken by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when asked what he thought about the looting in Baghdad after the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq.
Mr. Hare calls this a history play. Many of the lines have been spoken by George W. Bush and his entire staff. Mainly, the play details the run-up to the Iraq war, played out by Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and the entire cast of characters in charge in Washington during that time. Mr. Hare uses actual speeches and confrontations of that period and only imagines what happened behind closed doors.
"It's about power. And there's one man who understands power, and that's George W. Bush," the playwright says.
The play moves from one conference to another. Meetings between Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice are the most feasible.
The president does everything he can to make the attack reasonable. The French will have none of it. In fact, only British Prime Minister Tony Blair buys into the plan.
The readers, all local actors, sit facing the audience. They rise when they are in each scene; otherwise, they remain seated.
Mr. Hare does not prove anything we don't already know. He may get some insight into what led to the war. One is getting rid of a menace and turning Iraq into a democracy. But the mission changed on a daily basis. The president made the decision, and that was to be that.
The 30-member cast all get their chance to make a point, but, as to new revelations, forget about it.
This play that chronicles the U.S. invasion of Iraq is just that, "a history play," as the author reminds us.
And maybe that's what's wrong with "Stuff Happens." There's no mystery, no drama and very little humor.
All the actors are very good, but here they are only readers. The play doesn't take sides at all but hints the invasion was a bad idea. The play is rather boring. All it does is rehash recent history, history we all have lived through.
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